


The Evils of Drinking

by AngelOfDeath10



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Humor, Romance, Tumblr Prompt, hints of romance, no beta we die like men, same age au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26342704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfDeath10/pseuds/AngelOfDeath10
Summary: Sakura is an annoying drunk but she's finally met her match in the form of prickly visiting dignitary Sasori. It might be best that neither can hold their liquor well because sober they'd never get along, but drunk? Well, they still might not get along...
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Sasori, Haruno Sakura/Sasori
Comments: 16
Kudos: 148





	The Evils of Drinking

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Yeah, still don't own Naruto after all this time.
> 
> This is based on a picture I saw posted by @aprito on Tumblr where I then casually commented I should write a prompt for it. (https://aprito.tumblr.com/post/627278973485940736/sasosaku-shippers-putting-sakura-and-sasori-as-the)
> 
> I do not make idle promises.

As soon as the sake hit his lips Sasori knew he was in for a Bad Time as his stomach immediately flipped. His crazy grandmother and her Konoha rival were drinking sake like water while the Hokage's apprentice felt like it was her obligation to challenge him as if they were extensions of their elders. Sasori had only come this far out of morbid curiosity for the woman his grandmother called her _nemesis_. For decades, Chiyo made poisons and Tsunade cured them through some mysterious method of backwards engineering, and once the wars had ended the enmity only amplified somehow. In the light of the setting sun in late summer, this rivalry looked a terrible lot like friendship and Sasori knew he'd been had considering his grandmother had insisted he come "guard" her on her diplomatic visit to exchange and collect rare ingredients.

Perhaps there were still secrets to be plumbed from the dim looking girl with the bubblegum hair. Her pretty face was already turning ruddy in the cheeks from too much alcohol, clashing with everything else about her. Why someone with pink hair thought a red color palette for her clothing was a good idea said more for her lack of sense than anything else. She had followed him earlier with interested eyes and had a demeanor too friendly by half, but his grandmother had said to be wary all the same. The old slug summoner was lazy and a drunk, but wouldn't have taken on a weak girl for an apprentice regardless of Chiyo's low opinion of the Hokage.

"You're two behind now, Sasori was it?" In their little corner with a couple stolen bottles of sake, she tucked some hair behind her ear and clucked in his general direction.

He didn't care about the competition aspect, but she'd probably whine and pout if he didn't play along and the faster she got drunk the easier it would be to pry out answers to some of his questions. Quickly he downed the two small cups and then two more besides while the girl rubbed her hands in glee. His body was already beginning to get uncomfortably warm, but he refused to unzip his jacket.

"Usually I just sit here and watch Lady Tsunade drink her guests under the table, so you have no idea how glad I am you're here. You have to tell me all about Suna. What do you do for fun? What's the best food? What music is popular?" Shell pink lips opened to down her own drink and give a discreet cough before more words spilled out. Had she been this talkative earlier? He should be annoyed but oddly he mostly just felt… maudlin.

"It's a spec of nothing surrounded by sand and crawling with ants. It's not worth a second thought." His face felt hot and his vision was blurry, but rather than seeking an antidote Sasori moved to down another cup. In some respects, he had never felt so free before.

A hand covered it before the rim could meet his lips and inadvertently Sasori partially kissed a calloused knuckle. Lazily he looked up into the girl's eyes and she was rather redder than she had been a moment ago. Closer in color to her crimson shirt than anything else he could compare in the room, Sasori knew he should be smiling at her and encouraging those loosening lips to reflect on her training but instead his scowl bit deeper.

"You sound like you need to have some fun! Let's go find my friends and see if anyone wants to go get some food and have a laugh. No one is better at cheering people up than Naruto, but if you really want an experience we could go knock on Lee's door. You might have heard about him, the Kazekage himself saved his life and you'll never meet a character quite like him in our generation." Words just poured forth from her as if he had nicked a vein in a spar.

This time when he drank she drank with him, and he knew something funny was going on because the way she ran her tongue over her lip to catch a loose drop was suddenly beyond fascinating. He'd had some sort of objective earlier but it had gone fuzzy. He used his chakra strings to make a nearby potted plant dance around while Sakura continued to ask him questions she didn't allow him enough time to answer, as if he had any desire to in the first place.

"You must have some sort of amazing lotions to be able to keep your skin from drying out in heat like that, and I'm a pretty good hand at chemistry after spending so much time in labs if you could just give me a little hint. I've savaged an aloe plant or two in my day but I can't seem to get the overall texture to hold and oh wow how are you making that fern do that?" Finally, she picked up on his causal use of a technique that in any other circumstance he should have not let her know he possessed. Then again, no doubt there was a file on him somewhere. Did it list his kill count correctly? Were there sketches of his puppets?

Content to watch the fern pretend to strangle itself before Sasori became bored and enacted a dramatic suicide scene at the window that ended with a faint sound of shattered pottery, Sakura's delighted laugh at the pantomime registered as he arched an eyebrow and took another drink. What a waste of time this had been. Coming to Konoha had been a spectacularly bad idea. Hearing his grandmother's cackling laugh to something the Hokage said in the corner, Sasori felt his patience snap and he leapt to his feet intending to march out and back to his village issued hotel room to sleep off the effects of the alcohol. Tomorrow he would head home regardless of what the old woman's intentions were this visit.

His swift and absolutely unintentional descent to the floor was stopped by an astonishingly strong hand. Sakura prevented him from hitting the floor by catching him by the back of his vest, but she was leaning over the table delicately and appeared to have him grasped by a single hand. Weight differentials and positioning being what they were, that wasn't possible.

"You looked like you weren't about to stop yourself from hitting the floor, and even though I could probably heal a bloody nose or a split lip without too much trouble like this, I'm sure the Hokage would prefer her guests avoid injury." Those even white teeth in her smile felt oh so far away, so once he found purchase with his own feet he leaned across the table to get a closer look. Sakura seemed suddenly shy as he examined her for flaws. Dry skin, sun damage, the hint of asymmetry where her nose might have been broken and reset in not precisely the same place but overall her facial features were unusually pleasing to the eye. "Is there something in my teeth?"

He felt the need to announce his intentions, for her benefit. "I'm going back to my room. A dreary night waiting for one of those two to drop or cede victory to the other sounds like a waste of my time. If you're smart, you'll do the same."

Startled, Sakura watched Sasori struggle to stand. He succeeded at last, swaying as if on a ship, but to make a point he downed one last drink anyway and tossed the cup out of the same window in which the fern had bade farewell to this earth. Trying to give her a confident stare down, but knowing he was blinking too much to make it intimidating Sasori gave up and stalked out of the Hokage's office. He got down the stairs and about three steps out of the administrative building as a whole when he felt a presence behind him.

The kunai was out and sweeping through the air before he could even decide consciously if he wanted to do something about the presence. Turns out his subconscious was more murderous than he suspected. There would be no international incident tonight, though, because Sakura dodged it with glee and then ran over to sniff it. Sasori stumbled a step or two before marching in the direction he assumed the hotel was in, trusting instinct over intellect in this state.

"That was fun! Maybe we should spar instead, I never did that _this_ drunk before and that could be a laugh, but Tsunade told me I was not allowed to hurt you so maybe we should wait until we're sober tomorrow. And oh that poison you put on your kunai seems really interesting, maybe I should take a sample since Tsunade always said Suna poisons were the absolutely most devilish to figure out and I'd love something new to work on since it's just routine these days at the hospital…"

It was impossible to drown out her voice as she fell into step beside him. Standing, he noted that she was nearly eye to eye with him in her low-heeled boots. He wasn't used to looking a peer in the eye. Most people in Suna avoided eye contact or slumped their shoulders a bit in his presence to diminish the chance he would notice them. Her lack of fear was another sign of stupidity from his companion, but it also made it easier to figure out the exact shade of her irises.

Wait a minute.

He stopped in his tracks and turned towards the smiling and slowly swaying kunoichi. "You got told not to hurt _me_? Do you know who I am?"

"You're Sasori of the Red Sand. Do you know who _I_ am?" Sakura said with a huge grin. "Now let's go get some ramen. What toppings are popular in Suna?"

Confused as Sakura shored up his left side with her shoulder and spun them in another direction while explaining how what she really wanted was a whole pile of dessert but most people needed to eat dinner before they had sweets, Sasori wondered when the last time a human being dared to touch him with such familiarity. The companionable arm that slunk around his shoulder was impossible to shake. Her body heat was somehow far more unbearable comparative to the heat of the evening or the way the alcohol made his blood burn just underneath his skin. His disgust at his body knew no bounds tonight.

The lights were too bright near the dingy stand while he impossibly felt his body get drunker even as they waited for whatever Sakura had ordered. When the noodles arrived, and he stared down at the greasy swirl next to the corn and half a gelatinous looking egg, it was all Sasori could do not to vomit right there. Sakura was happily tucking in, which meant that she wasn't talking. In the relative silence, Sasori felt himself compelled to say something.

"We don't eat food like this in Suna. As a medical professional how can you do this to your body?"

Swallowing a drink of water to chase the noodles, Sakura leaned her head against her hand—nearly missing once, letting him know they were together in imbibing more than intended—and gave him a look that smacked of pity.

"Suna sounds tough. Or is it just you? Do you ever let down? Unwind? You must have a hobby."

Letting off steam was something weak people did when they couldn't handle reality. He was totally in control of himself and his choices. So when he unzipped his jacket it was a fully conscious choice and not a reaction to foreign fleeting ideas that somehow combined Sakura's pretty smile and sparring into a mélange of feelings that heated his blood past his limitations.

"I'm an artist," he delivered in what he thought were acceptably icy tones.

Sakura produced a pen from somewhere on her person and shoved it at him along with a napkin. "You should draw something for me. Think of it as payment for the ramen."

Sasori sneered at her for valuing his talent so cheaply, but somehow that expectant gleam in her eye encouraged him to start sketching. Ball point on napkin was fiddly, and the pen bled, but before he knew it he had done a pretty convincing sketch of one of her eyes, accompanied by a dissected view of the eyeball next to it.

"Hey you weren't kidding, you're as good as Sai!" Whoever that was. Sakura snatched the napkin out from under the pen, ripping a portion of it and forcing Sasori to face a still twisting world. Now that he didn't have a focus the nausea was creeping back. "Oh hey you don't look so good."

Fingers glowing green she wiggled them in the air to get his attention. "Do you trust me? I can fix your problem."

Of course he didn't trust her. He didn't trust anyone. But the odds were low that the Hokage's apprentice meant a foreign visitor harm. He extended his hand like a king waiting for fealty from a vassal. Sakura gave a beatific smile and socked him in the stomach hard enough he almost fell off the stool. He wanted to stab her in the neck for the presumption, but he also acknowledged he no longer wanted to vomit and with the nausea gone the ramen actually did make his mouth water. She was seemingly already ignoring him and tucking the napkin away in an unobtrusive pouch at her hip.

"Figured out that little trick drinking with a friend of mine. Naruto has a hard time knowing when to stop. Don't worry, I didn't kill your buzz." Sakura clapped Sasori on the shoulder companionably and then went back to her meal, as he tentatively picked up his chopsticks.

Tonight was a lot of things he didn't do: getting drunk, casual conversation, sharing meals, human contact. It wasn't as abominable as it could have been, even if he didn't plan on repeating it any time soon. A loose memory from earlier in the evening allowed him to focus on his objective long enough to start in on the line of questioning he had intended from the start.

"I wouldn't mind knowing that trick. Perhaps you can teach me."

"The butcher of the red sands interested in a medical jutsu for upset stomachs? Next you'll be telling me you need one for hangovers!"

He knew a great many medical jutsu, but operating on dead (or nearly dead) bodies was quite different than whatever this parlor trick was. It wasn't how she cured poisons, but even little things could tell someone like him a lot about a person's mentality. Sasori's dead eyed and humorless expression must have said it all because the laugh turned into an awkward cough that she covered up by taking a drink of water.

"It's hard to concentrate now, but I can show you tomorrow. It's pretty easy, I promise. You know a lot about anatomy, I'm sure you'll get the chemistry behind it real fast. As for the hangover, just drink enough of this," she shoved a full glass of water in his direction that had been waiting next to the ramen, "And it shouldn't be an issue. And don't worry, I won't tell any of your friends what a lightweight you are."

He didn't comment on the impossibility of embarrassing him in front of people that didn't exist. He didn't touch the water.

*  
*  
*

 _Just be yourself, don't let him know he intimidates you_. Tsunade's advice to her before Lady Chiyo and Sasori of the Red Sand arrived in town didn't stop Sakura's jitters. It was the first time Lady Chiyo was bringing her grandson, the infamous killer and genius puppetmaster. When she was still studying at the academy with the threat of war hanging over her head, he had been on actual battlefields while a mere year or two older. Perhaps in the intervening years they had been covered in the same amount of blood, but Sakura only found herself wrist deep in someone's guts while trying to put them back together rather than take them apart. How could Tsunade think that Sakura knew how to entertain a monster? It was an impossible mission to make nice with the man.

Worse, when he had stepped into the Hokage's office, pretty and unassuming with those unreadable eyes she knew she was less than nothing to him. She had read his file, but he didn't even know her name. It hurt her pride to know that someone like this didn't even think enough of stepping into former enemy territory to learn a bit about the people that surround the Hokage. Eyeing the stack of bottles in the corner, she had known Tsunade wouldn't miss a few. Alcohol was the great equalizer in some ways. A plan had formed quickly if haphazardly.

The sake had been good! But after the ramen she had picked up beer and somehow the evening had devolved into fragments of memories, with the highlights being Sakura ranting about how men just didn't understand how to respect a strong woman, and rubbing Sasori's back as he vomited into the tree line outside the village wall and straight up sobbed about having a lower kill count than the Kazekage ("he has a demon and he doesn't sleep, it just isn't fair!"). Suffice to say, neither of them escaped with their pride before midnight.

But nothing about that moment she poured the first drink did she think that she would be shaking Sasori of the Red Sands awake while he was groaning on her relatively new blue couch, curly red hair in a tangle and light brown eyes bloodshot and unseeing. She had thought about letting him sleep in her bed while she took the couch when she had been dragging his limp and astonishingly light form into her apartment, but some inner part of her told her conscious mind that for both their sakes it was best not to have to explain anything that even approached a compromising situation.

"Rise and shine, buttercup. I have aspirin or a jutsu, whichever you trust more…" She felt decent after a few glasses of water and her own healing touch but she knew there would be answers demanded for why a guest dignitary and alleged war criminal did not check in to his room last night. Discreet jounin would no doubt be knocking on her door shortly, and either she got Sasori out of here quietly or she swallowed the weeks of speculation over whether Sakura Haruno had really allowed a Suna guest do the walk of shame from her apartment after a night of drinking.

It was not the kind of 'entertainment' Tsunade had been encouraging, no matter how pretty his eyes and how tortured his soul. Truth wouldn't even matter at that point. People preferred to believe the most salacious version of a story. Sakura was a soft touch for the ones that looked like they needed saving, and it looked like she was about to get bit over it again.

One moment she was gently rolling his shoulder back and forth, and the next she was dropping into a split and then tumbling away from a huge ugly puppet that seemed to fill the entire living room with clacking limbs and murderous intent. A bookshelf turned over out of her line of sight, and glass shattered behind it. This was a little more like what she had expected from the beginning, and she was glad that her best friend was also the kind of person who believed in morning ambush training because even in loose pajama bottoms and a spaghetti strap top, Sakura was ready to blast her opponent into goddam splinters.

"I thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt!" She yelled, dodging a metallic scorpion tail that dove through the drywall next to her head and no doubt invalidated yet another security deposit. The apartment manager had quizzed her so closely when she had moved in, and she had promised so dutifully no more shenanigans in this particular building. "But you've really pissed me off!"

Seeing the mouth of the nasty scorpion puppet open and a spigot protrude, she wasn't about to allow all her neighbors to be gassed or worse and darted past another tail strike to slap her hands together on either side of the puppet's face. It was obliterated, and the spigot pinched shut all in one moment and at this spectacular display of both violence and strength, the puppet suddenly ceased moving. Sasori must have finally woken up.

"You can still have the aspirin, and a glass of water, but then in light of all this…. I'd rather you get the hell out of my apartment,… if you please." Sakura felt like the last part was as diplomatic as she could get when there was a hole in her wall and floor. The partially destroyed puppet disappeared into a scroll and a piece of ceiling fell down between them as Sasori clutched his head and regarded Sakura with considerably more speculation than he had yesterday when they met in Tsunade's office.

Smoothing out his pained expression, canny eyes watched as Sakura swept a bit of sweat off the side of her face and pulled up one of her lavender straps back to the top of her shoulder. "I believe you promised to teach me something as well, Sakura. And I'd hate to think you're the kind of person who goes back on their word."

So he'd be leaving on his terms or not at all, she realized. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"I'm pretty sure promises made to tolerable sad you, while drunk, are void when you try to kill me the next morning." An unpleasant calculated smile spread across his face, and Sakura sighed. Why were the pretty ones always so broken? "At least wait for me to get dressed."

Reasonably sure he wasn't about to do anything more nefarious to her living room than what had already been done, Sakura retreated and pulled on some clean clothes. She didn't want to invest the time into a shower, or trust being naked within fifty feet of him. Feeling better able to emotionally handle the day with light armor on, she emerged to find Sasori rooting through the contents of her kitchen. How nice he felt like he could help himself to her eggs and sausage after ruining her apartment and no doubt her reputation. She was working herself up into a rage at last after a sincerely trying morning, words sputtering through her mind in circles when the knock came that had her just about leaping over her couch to pull open the door with a guarded smile. As soon as she saw who it was her face froze in that approximation of friendliness.

"Tell my grandson to get out here right now,"

"Lady Chiyo, what makes you think that—" The presence behind her was as distinct as it was enraging. Because of course he would choose that exact moment. The temptation to just punch backwards would have been irresistible if not for the older woman who was smiling at the two of them like she knew something they didn't. This was worse than the walk of shame she had planned to send Sasori on this morning by a magnitude. "Would you like some breakfast, Lady Chiyo?"

It was said for Sasori's benefit, to needle him for cooking up what she had planned to be a nice breakfast for herself, alone, in a couple days on her day off, but neither one of these Suna ninjas seemed to care about the warning in her tone. Somehow, Sakura found herself playing hostess to the visiting dignitary while Sasori cooked her food.

"He's a little rough around the edges, but I hope you don't hold that against him," Chiyo said, talking about her grandson as if not only he weren't there but was also a slightly defective model of human she was trying to sell to Sakura. "I'm sure with a little bit of molding he can be turned into something resembling respectable. He's very durable."

"With all due respect Lady Chiyo, I think you misunderstand."

The old woman stared at the picture-perfect breakfast that her grandson deposited with little grace in front of her, letting the plate land so hard a sausage actually leapt from the surface and dropped onto her robes. The greasy stain it left made Sakura feel like absolutely nothing in her life was going to go right today. Chiyo for her part prodded at the food then had the absolute gall to perform a jutsu scanning for poison, which once Sakura thought about it seemed like a very good idea for anything Sasori was serving up. Satisfied it wasn't going to kill her, the old woman took a bite of egg.

"My grandmother is implying that we continue our social visit while she finishes her shopping today. And unless I'm mistaken, old woman, you're assuming I'll be performing repairs on this quaint living situation?"

Sakura might as well not have been there. The two family members were really talking to each other. With a noise of disgust she examined and then started eating her own food.

"You can reconstruct a broken human hand, you can patch up a wall," the old woman grunted. "Now play nice with your new friend or you might not be invited back." The condescending tone sounded so much like Sasori's own that even if there weren't similarities in facial structure she'd have known the two were related.

Conversation and her mood lightened a bit as Lady Chiyo asked which vendors she should stop at for some of the rarer localized ingredients and medicinal herbs, and Sakura was happy to write down directions to her own preferred merchants. It was nice to be able to discuss something normal, such that even when Chiyo stood with knees popping and back cracking to head back out, Sakura felt less like baldly murdering Sasori and more like merely fighting him.

Her friendly smile fell immediately once the door was closed behind Chiyo. She rounded on Sasori, would have poked him in the chest with an accusing finger if it weren't absolutely evident that touching him in any way was a dangerous prospect, unlike last night. "Why are you still even here? You obviously don't want to help me clean up, and you made it very plain last night that you think everything in this village is below your interest."

Even hung over and tired he was handsome, and he made a show of stretching lean muscles and picking up his discarded jacket from the floor at last. He pulled it on over his undershirt and wrappings, and patted various pockets as if to reassure himself of the contents. Running dexterous fingers through his hair to rid it of tangles, Sasori languidly wandered over to crouch by and examine the hole in the floor with a sniff. Sakura watched his performance impassively, with arms folded and her scowl no doubt scouring lines on her face.

"Not everything." He said softly enough to put into question that he meant to say it out loud and as he finally met her eyes it was the confusion there that brought a lump to her throat. Her defensive posture eased before Sakura even realized it.

There was a sinking feeling in Sakura's chest that told her that like medical training and slug summoning, perhaps she had also inherited being a sucker from her master.


End file.
